How hard can it be to cancel your hosting account?
 

My previous host is getting on my nerves...

I've been sending in support tickets and emails with the request to cancel my account with them for over 2 weeks now and still they refuse to answer me.

The phone support is excellent to, this is what's on their website: "In order to keep our prices low, we do not offer phone support at this time.
However we do offer email and ticket based support options."
Yeah right!

In the control panel there's no option of deleting my creditcard info so I'll probably be billed again in a few days.

Any suggestions?

Am I glad I made the move over to colo-cation |thumb

For me it has been REALLY difficult with a couple of hosts.

Ticket after ticket, emails, icqs, no way of being able to cancel on their site and no mention of it. In most cases even though I try to cancel at least a week or two in advance I get rebilled.

Then again hosting is pretty dirty business nowdays with many discount hosts trying every trick in the book... so you should probably expect to have to run the gauntlet if using one of those super cheap ones :)


ps : wonder how many hosts will try to spam this thread? :)

Do a chargeback ;)

Really depends on the place. The first host I was with was a nightmare, ticket support never answered, when they did they claimed the server was up and it was really down for 4 days, and finally getting a refund for the remaining year was just like pulling teeth. I finally had to leave a, umm, not so friendly voicemail :D I don't think I've ever cussed that much in a 30 second message before, lol.

I was fortunate years ago that a host I'd stopped using did have a way to *update* my credit card info. They thought of it as a way to get my new information when my card expired some day. But I used it to enter all erroneous information instead. They tried to bill me again after I canceled, and even contacted me to tell me the charge did not go through.

Idiots.

Maybe your old host has a link/screen where you can 'update' your billing information too?


Simon

That's why it's so important to be such a pain in the ass to your host. So, when you decide to leave voluntarily, they're more than happy to fulfill your cancellation request.

They have such a page but it seems their system validates the new info first before updating you current info :(
Maybe I can ask my Romanian friends for a few stole CC numbers |couch|

Believe me, I'm one of those guys that knocks on your door at least twice a week, just ask Sparky :D

Yeah, at the time I think I used one of the old standard test strings. Might just have been the old 4444-3333-2222-1111 plus any future expiration date, which used to work to bypass some of the validators scripts used at a lot of places years ago. Probably not as easy today. :(

Be careful is all I can say. Keep all emails, ect.

I once cancelled a hosting account with some company (the name escapes me at the moment) and 10-11 months later I got a phone call from a collections agency wanting $1300. Luckily I had a copy of the email I sent them and the confirmation from their support ticket that they got it saying I was cancelling my account. And I gave them 30 days notice so I was covered.

There are times when chargeback isn't a bad word. I agree this is one of them. :)

Not much seems to have changed since then Simon, for some reason that worked :D

This happen to us as well, we canceled and got a $800 bill 2 months later which I refused to pay and told them so using many colorful words which helped them see the light.

I have never paid my hosting bill with a credit card

your better off writing checks for business expenses
its much easier to keep track of expenditures at tax time

Excellent |thumb

Anyone who hasn't updated their verification script to catch that one definitely doesn't deserve your business/trust.

Awesome! I agree with Simon, if THAT little trick fixed it...they don't deserve to be in business!

And yea...definitely keep copies of any cancellation requests you sent them. As stupid as they may be, they may also have a copy of your cc info somewhere and try to keep charging you anyway.

Like most here, I've had more than my share of hosting hell in the past |angry|

I hate to write checks. Since I signed up for my bank's bill pay, I don't think I have written 25 checks total in about 9 months.

I agree that a person needs to use whatever is easiest for them to keep track of expenses with.

now... this is a $50/month plan. now I'm upto $950. So I left... what? I year and a half ago? You'd think somebody would've noticed since then. Especially after I let them know I was leaving, and they acknowledged and confirmed that.

Lucky for me that was a virtual card which didn't have enough funds on it for them to bill and which eventually expired anyways. I wonder if I'll get a letter in a few years from now informing me I've got an unpaid $10k balance :D

Well halleluja, praise Buddy C!
I finally got a reply to one of the emails I've sent over the last 2 weeks.

Just 1 word in it: "done"

That's a good way to end a 3 year partnership :)

Guess they noticed your new credit card number and decided it was time to let you cancel. |thumb